


Ringing

by orphan_account



Series: Strings Attached [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Established Relationship, Hallucinations, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Psychosis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-04
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2018-03-28 23:56:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3874750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren wakes up to find Levi thinking there's a phone ringing when there is none. This isn't something entirely unusual, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ringing

**Author's Note:**

> I'm super tired so I don't feel like really writing out tons of notes but let me just say this is heavily heavily based on my own experiences and it's actually harder for me to write about people not understanding what it's like to have psychosis than it is to write people with psychosis. Looking back on this it's so much less than what I wanted it to be like I dunno the quality just doesn't seem super great but I want to post it so here it is.
> 
> As always, follow me on tumblr at [downtheupstairs](http://downtheupstairs.tumblr.com/) or just like send me questions or whatever.

It was no secret that Levi didn’t sleep well. He had a hard time falling asleep, and once he finally did if he didn’t wake up a few hours later from nightmares his sleep was at least restless and he woke up just as exhausted as the night before. His lovers had gotten accustomed to it after a while, knowing the man didn’t like them worrying, but every so often his shifting or panic would wake one or both of up.

Even with his nightmares, it was rare for Levi to wake them by jerking into a sitting position all of a sudden during the night. His nightmares normally had him turning into a statue, unmoving except for his trembling, and that was part of why it was so terrifying – he woke up feeling unable to move.

So when Eren was woken one night by Levi sitting up, his groggy mind told him to be worried. “Levi?” he asked, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and sitting up to put a hand on his lover’s shoulder. He looked over to check on Erwin and found that the man had rolled onto his back and was still soundly snoring away. Erwin had never been as clingy or light a sleeper as Eren was.

Once he was assured that Erwin was still asleep, Eren turned back to look at Levi, not finding fear on his face but confusion. “What is it?” Eren asked, rubbing soothing circles into the small of Levi’s back. “What’s going on?”

“Phone,” Levi muttered, narrowing his eyes at the closed bedroom door. “Someone’s phone is ringing.”

Eren tilted his head to the door to try to hear what Levi was talking about, but he couldn’t hear anything. “I don’t hear it,” Eren told Levi.

Levi just frowned, still looking accusingly at the door. “’S really fucking annoying,” he said, but he didn’t try to argue with Eren. “Think I’m just hearing it.”

Oh. Eren understood what was going on. It didn’t happen very often, though Eren and Erwin suspected it happened more than Levi let on. Levi was hallucinating. Just thinking those words scared Eren, but he tried to tell himself they shouldn’t. Neither Erwin nor Eren had known Levi before he was being treated for his psychosis, and the man didn’t like to talk about that time period, but they knew a little bit about it and had tried to help Levi whenever things started going south again.

He wasn’t schizophrenic, that was one of the first things Levi had told them about it, looking at them with a conflicted and frustrated expression that Eren and Erwin couldn’t understand at the time but later learned to be a combination of challenge – daring them to comment on it, to call him crazy, to tell him that wasn’t possible, schizos didn’t just walk around like normal people, they sat at bus stops talking to themselves or lived their whole lives inside an institution – and fear, fear that they would take that challenge and say any of it. It was self-consciousness hidden behind pride; Levi’s silent way of saying that he’d been hurt before and he fully anticipated being hurt again.

He wasn’t schizophrenic, not that there’d be anything wrong with that, but he had some psychosis every now and then. It didn’t fit under any pretty disorder label; it just was what it was. A little bit of dissociation, a few hallucinations, mostly just some paranoid delusions. It was under control, Levi told them, but that didn’t mean it was completely gone. He tried not to make it obvious to anyone, even when the psychosis reared its ugly head, and he said he didn’t like people knowing. He didn’t need to tell Eren and Erwin that that was because he was afraid. Eren and Erwin figured it out on their own that Levi was more afraid of how people would react to it than he was of the psychosis itself.

So Eren was pretty sure that the psychosis was the reason Levi was insisting he could hear a phone ringing. In the past couple years of their relationship, this kind of situation had happened a couple of times, where a hallucination kept Levi from sleeping. Last time he’d thought he’d heard someone hammering.

“There’s no phone ringing, Levi,” Eren told his lover, carefully watching his face for any sort of reaction. He still felt completely out of his element trying to help Levi with this. It hadn’t happened enough for him to know how to deal with it confidently, and Levi had never been the type to accept much help, anyway.

Levi frowned again at Eren’s words before turning to look at the bedside table. “Where’s your phone?” he asked.

“I think it’s in the kitchen,” Eren responded, watching Levi climb out of bed and getting out himself to follow the man when he left the room. “What’re you doing?” he asked, and he closed the bedroom door behind them as he winced at the sudden brightness of the living room light that Levi had just turned on.

“I just need to check,” Levi told Eren, frustrated both by the damn ringing phone and by the doubting tone of Eren’s voice. It sounded to Levi like Eren had been calling him crazy with that question, even though he knew that that wasn’t what Eren had meant. He found Eren’s phone on the kitchen counter as promised and checked it, only to find it silent as expected. He went on to check his own cell phone, both Erwin’s personal and work cells, and the home landline.

“See, no one’s calling,” Eren concluded at the end of Levi’s little phone tour of the house. “Nothing to worry about.” He wanted to go hug Levi, but the man still appeared ready to break at any moment.

“It’s still-“ Levi paused and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He needed to relax. He knew there was no phone ringing, he just needed to check, it sounded so _real_ , he needed to check. Levi’s eyes suddenly darted to the window in the living room and he strode across the room to it. “Maybe it’s coming from the neighbor’s house?”

Eren sighed and followed Levi to the window. “Levi, I’m telling you, it’s completely silent. There’s no phone.”

“I _know_!” Levi exclaimed, finally snapping. “I _know_ there’s no goddam fucking phone, but my shitty _brain_ refuses to believe that!”

This was the part that Eren really didn’t understand. Levi tried to explain it a couple of times, how there was this… separation, between him and his brain. It didn’t make any sense to Eren, since your brain had all your thoughts and feelings and memories and that all made up who you were, but Levi didn’t know how to explain it much better than that. He just insisted that it was there, that when it came to all of this it didn’t really matter what he knew to be true and logical, his brain still wouldn’t accept it. Erwin didn’t understand it much better than Eren did. They at least tried to get it, though.

“I know,” Eren said calmly, worried for Levi whenever he got like this. “But I’m telling you, there’s no phone. It’s just a- a hallucination, I think, ok?”

“I fucking _know_ that,” Levi sighed, slumping against the wall and running a slightly trembling hand through his hair. “That doesn’t stop it from being really fucking annoying.”

“What can I do to help?” Eren asked, finally feeling like he was completely out of ideas on his own.

Levi sighed. “Knock me out, maybe?” he suggested with a bitter laugh. “At least then I’d be able to sleep.”

Eren didn’t find that very funny. “I think we’ve got Benadryl,” he said in place of responding to Levi’s suggestion. “Maybe that’d help you sleep?”

“It’ll just make me feel crazier than I already am,” Levi explained as he shook his head, and Eren winced a little bit at Levi calling himself ‘crazy.’ Now wasn’t the time for that discussion, though.

“TV?” he asked. “Maybe it’ll help drown out the noise?”

Levi sighed again. “Yeah, we can try,” he agreed. “Don’t get your hopes up, though.”

Levi got the laptop and charger and set things up in the guest bedroom as Eren wrote a quick note and leaves it on the bedside table next to the still-sleeping Erwin in the master: _Levi’s having a bad night. In the other bedroom trying to help him out. <3 Eren._

It wasn’t like Erwin wouldn’t be able to quickly figure that out on his own in the morning, but it was just more polite to leave a note, they thought. Situations similar to these were the main reason they had a second bedroom. If one of them couldn’t sleep or needed some space, they went in there.

By the time Eren crept into the spare bedroom, Levi already had the laptop on and was pulling up Netflix. “Still hearing it?” Eren asked as he climbed in bed and curled up next to the other man.

“Yeah,” Levi sighed. “’S giving me a headache.”

“I’m sorry,” Eren said, even though he knew those words would do nothing to help. “Tomorrow’s Saturday, at least, so we don’t have anything we need to do, except maybe grocery shopping. We can do whatever you want.”

Levi hummed in agreement as he scrolled through the Netflix offerings and eventually clicked on _Shrek_.

“ _Shrek_?” Eren asked, a little teasingly, but he felt awkward at Levi’s simple shrug in response. So, Levi was definitely not in a teasing mood. Noted.

It didn’t take long for Eren to start drowsing off again during the movie. He couldn’t even see the screen that well with the way he was curled up behind Levi, so he was mostly just listening to Shrek and Donkey bicker with each other.

A loud moment in the movie woke Eren from his drowsing and he decided to check if Levi was asleep. Nope, he was still staring at the computer screen, looking just as frustrated as earlier.

“Still can’t sleep?” Eren asked, bringing up a hand to brush some hair out of Levi’s face.

Levi didn’t even look back towards Eren, just kept staring at the laptop. “Nope,” he said. “You try falling asleep when there’s a phone ringing nonstop.” It was a nightmare. Between rings there was this lull where he hoped that would be the last one, it was all finished, but then it would start again. It was worse than a constant sound, because he couldn’t fully adjust to it. It was almost impossible to adjust to hallucinations, anyway. They weren’t like real sounds in that fashion.

“It’ll be ok,” Eren assured Levi, though he honestly wasn’t sure if that was true. “It’s gotta stop eventually, right?”

Levi scoffed lightly. “Yeah, maybe after I pass out from exhaustion, but who knows how long that could take?”

“I’m sorry,” Eren said again, because he didn’t know what else he could possibly say.

 

* * *

 

Eren didn’t know when he’d fallen asleep for good, but Levi had still been awake when it happened. When Eren cracked his eyes open in the morning, though, and looked at Levi, who had turned to face Eren and curl into his chest, he was pleased to find the man asleep. Eren had to pee, but he didn’t want to move. He didn’t know how much sleep Levi had gotten, but he never got enough, so he wasn’t going to wake him for anything. He just rested his eyes and let himself daydream.

The door creaked open a little later, and Eren opened his eyes to find Erwin checking in on them. The blond was already dressed to go to the gym, like he did every morning, but Eren wasn’t surprised he’d want to make sure they were all right before he left.

“Is he asleep?” Erwin mouthed, pointing at Levi, once he saw Eren was awake.

Eren nodded as best he could without bothering Levi.

“Everything ok?”

Eren shrugged a bit before mouthing, “Yeah.” Levi was asleep, at least, so things were pretty ok.

“What happened?”

“Later,” Eren mouthed. He didn’t want to get into the conversation without actually being able to talk.

Erwin nodded in understanding and whispered, “Well, I’m going to the gym. Text me if you need anything. I’ll get your phone.”

“Put it on silent,” Eren requested in a whisper as Erwin turned to leave. The man came back a moment later with Eren’s cellphone and handed it to the boy, who checked to make sure Erwin had, indeed, silenced it. “Thanks,” Eren mouthed, angling his head up towards Erwin for a kiss.

Erwin pecked Eren on the lips before backing off the bed. He still didn’t want to risk waking Levi. “Be back later,” he mouthed, giving a little wave as he left the room.

 

* * *

 

Eren had fallen back asleep sometime after Erwin left, but when he woke again he knew he could no longer wait to use the bathroom. Levi was still curled up against him, asleep, so Eren just very carefully and slowly slipped away and off the bed, smiling when he was able to successfully get out of bed without waking his lover. He hurried to the bathroom to relieve himself, closing the bedroom door behind him, and once he was done he realized that Erwin was back from the gym and had made coffee.

“I picked up some donuts on the way home,” Erwin told Eren when the boy came into the kitchen to pour himself some coffee.

“Thanks,” Eren replied, leaning up to kiss Erwin. “And good morning.”

“Good morning,” Erwin repeated with a small smile. The smile faded as he realized he could now ask Eren what had gone on with Levi last night. “So what happened?” he asked, leaning against the counter with his own mug of coffee.

“A, uh, hallucination,” Eren responded as he stirred cream into his mug. That word still sounded big and scary to admit. “He kept thinking there was a phone ringing. We checked every phone in the house and then he thought it was the neighbors’ but I kept telling him there was nothing. We ended up watching _Shrek_ on Netflix and he was having trouble falling asleep again but I guess sometime after I did he managed to.”

Erwin nodded as he took it all in. He felt just as helpless as Eren whenever Levi had problems with his psychosis. “Well,” he finally said. “At least he managed to sleep this time. Last time this happened he was awake all night.”

“Yeah,” Eren sighed, taking a sip of his coffee and leaning against the counter opposite Erwin. They stood there in silence for a couple of minutes, just sipping their drinks, before eventually Eren admitted, “I always feel like an asshole whenever this happens. Like last night, I was just saying ‘there’s no phone, Levi, there’s no phone, it’s completely silent’ and he got angry at me and said that he knew that but the thing where he couldn’t convince his brain about it or whatever. And it’s just like… what else could I say? I don’t… I don’t know how to help him.”

Erwin put down his mug and walked over to wrap his arms around Eren and press a kiss to his head. “Well, it sounds like whatever you did helped. He managed to fall asleep, right?”

Eren set down his own coffee and turned to properly hug Erwin, nodding into his chest as a response to the question.

“I don’t think anything we can do could make the hallucination stop,” Erwin told the boy. “We can just try to help him as he works through it himself.”

“Yeah,” Eren agreed, resting his head against Erwin’s chest. They stood there for a few long moments before Eren pulled away. “I’ll make some eggs and bacon. We need something more than donuts for breakfast.”

 

* * *

 

Levi came padding out of the bedroom about half an hour later, still rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

“Hey,” Eren called, turning away from the cartoons he’s watching on TV to look over the back of the couch at his lover.

Levi groaned out a response as he headed into the kitchen only to be stopped by Erwin grabbing his hand from his spot reading the newspaper at the counter.

“Morning,” Erwin greeted, pulling Levi close and pressing a kiss to his head. “How are you doing?”

“Crappy,” Levi answered honestly. “But at least I managed to get some sleep.”

Eren walked past them into the kitchen and began the process of making Levi a cup of tea.

“You’re not still hearing it, are you?” Erwin asked, squeezing Levi’s hand gently.

“Nah, my head’s back to as normal as it’ll get,” Levi told him, slipping away from Erwin to grab a plate and start serving himself some breakfast.

“That’s good,” Erwin said, nodding, though ‘as normal as it’ll get’ didn’t really sound very good at all. “So, is there anything in particular you’d like to do today?”

“Not really,” Levi shrugged, taking the tea Eren had prepared for him and sipping it. “We can just stay in and watch movies or shit like that.”

 

* * *

 

A few hours later, Levi found himself on the living room couch, squished between his two lovers who had both fallen asleep during their second movie. Levi kept the movie going, needing the distraction, but he allowed his mind to wander into thoughts of how much he loved his boyfriends. He wasn’t very good at telling them most of the time, but he suspected they knew, anyway. They were some of the few people Levi had trusted with the knowledge of his mental disorders, but they never made Levi feel like a freak about them. And they never tried to fix him, either. There were a lot of reasons why Levi felt like life had given him the short end of the stick, but when it came to his lovers, he felt lucky; unimaginably lucky. And the truly crazy part was, in Levi’s opinion, that they’d say there were lucky to have him back.


End file.
